European Film Promotion (EFP) and its member organisations are delighted to announce the 2024 line-up for this year’s edition of PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE being held before and during the Festival de Cannes (14 – 25 May, 2024). 20 of Europe’s most promising producers have been selected to take part in EFP’s prestigious promotion and networking platform which is not only celebrating its 25th anniversary, but will also be casting a spotlight on the numerous collaborations which have developed between around 500 participants from 37 European countries during this quarter century.
These are the 20 producers of this year’s anniversary edition. They were selected for the programme from the nominations submitted by the European national film promotion institutes (EFP’s member organisations):
Katharina Posch (Austria), Elisa Heene (Belgium /Flanders), Kalin Kalinov (Bulgaria), Tibor Keser (Croatia), Tonia Mishiali (Cyprus), Kristýna Michálek Květová (Czech Republic), Lina Flint (Denmark), Delphine Schmit (France), Fabian Driehorst (Germany), Maria Kontogianni (Greece), Sara Nassim (Iceland), Evan Horan (Ireland), Giedrė Žickytė (Lithuania), Katarzyna Ozga (Luxembourg), Angela Nestorovska (North Macedonia), Anita Rehoff Larsen (Norway), Isabel Machado (Portugal), Dragana Jovović (Serbia), Wanda Adamík Hrycová (Slovak Republic), Eva Åkergren (Sweden).
This exclusive group will take part in a tailor-made programme to foster international co-productions, intensify the exchange of experiences and help create new professional networks. The Pre-Festival online programme, which starts today and runs until 3 May, includes 1:1 speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions. The producers will then meet in person during the Festival de Cannes from 16 to 20 May and take part in a five-day on-site programme including case studies, social events and an extensive promotional campaign via the international trade magazines.
The selected participants have already been behind a number of award-winning films: Lina Flint produced Gustav Möller’s The Guilty, which won Sundance’s Audience Award and was shortlisted for the Oscars. French producer Delphine Schmit, whose short film Across the Waters by Viv Li is screening in the short film competition at this year’s Festival de Cannes, was also successful with the films Love According to Dalva by Emmanuelle Nicot, which triumphed at the 2024 Magritte Awards and picked up seven prizes including Best Film, and Our Mothers by Cesar Diaz, which won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2019. Other prize-winners are Katharina Posch (Soldier Jane by Daniel Hoesl, Tiger Award, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2013), Sara Nassim (The Lamb by Valdimar Jóhannsson, Un Certain Regard – Prize of Originality, Cannes, 2021; European Film Awards, Visual Effects 2021), Ireland’s Evan Horan (Oddity by Damian McCarthy, Midnighter Audience Award at SXSW 2024; Feature Film Audience Award at Overlook Film Festival 2024), Elisa Heene from Belgium (Holly by Fien Troch, Bisato d’Oro for Best Actress, Venice Film Festival 2023), Bulgaria’s Kalin Kalinov (Because I Love Bad Weather by Yana Lekarska, Audience Award, Sofia International Film Festival 2024), Tonia Mishiali from Cyprus (Pause by Tonia Mishiali, FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film, ERT National Television Award, Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2018) and Kristýna Michálek Květová (Arved by Vojtěch Mašek, Czech Lion Awards/ Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Music; Czech Film Critics’ Award).
Some producers have tended to concentrate on the production of animated films or documentaries such as Germany’s Fabian Driehorst with his Hamburg-based company Fabian&Fred, whose credits include the multi-award-winning animated feature film Sultana’s Dream by Isabel Herguera; Maria Kontogianni from Greece whose Nine Lives Left by Zacharias Mavroeidis received an award at the 2023 CEE Animation Forum; Giedrė Žickytė from Lithuania who was both producer and director of her documentaries Master and Tatyana and The Jump; Norway’s Anita Rehoff Larsen who produced such award-winning documentaries as Viktor Kossakovsky’s Gunda which premiered at the 2020 Berlinale, Tone Grøttjord-Glenne’s 2020 Hot Docs competition title All That I Am, and Corinne van der Borch and Tone Grøttjord-Glenne’s Sisters on Track. In addition to animated films and documentaries, other participants have also been involved in producing series for TV and streaming platforms such as Wanda Adamík Hrycová with the historical TV series The Slavs by Peter Bebjak.
The line-up also includes producers who continue long-standing collaborations with ”their“ directors, work with renowned talents or discover new ones in their respective countries or focus on debuts such as Tibor Keser from Croatia who produced Ivan Ramijak’s highly acclaimed El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia; Luxembourg’s Katarzyna Ozga who was involved in Barbara Albert’s Blind at Heart; Angela Nestorovska who co-produced Asimina Proedrou’s feature debut Behind the Haystacks; Dragana Jovović who is the producer of Ognjen Glavonić’s feature The Load which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2018; Portugal’s Isabel Machado who co-produced David Bonneville’s feature debut The Last Bath; Swedish producer Eva Åkergren’s recent co-productions have been Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, Malou Reymann’s Unruly, and Gustav Möller’s Sons together with Denmark’s Lina Flint. Eva is now in preproduction on her third collaboration with Amanda Kernell with The Curse – A Love Story.
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EFP PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE is made possible thanks to the support of Creative Europe – the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Eurimages, Film i Väst and MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, as well as the participating national film promotion institutes (EFP’s member organisations) from the Producers on the Move countries: Austrian Films, Bulgarian National Film Center, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Deputy Ministry of Culture (Cyprus), Czech Film Center, Danish Film Institute, German Films, Greek Film Centre, Iceland Film Centre, Lithuanian Film Centre, Film Fund Luxembourg, North Macedonia Film Agency, Norwegian Film Institute, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual I.P./ICA (Portugal), Screen Ireland / Fís Éireann, Film Center Serbia, Slovak Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Unifrance and Wallonie Bruxelles Images. The main media partner is Variety, with Cineuropa as an additional media partner.
